Following is a question by the Hon Abraham Shek and a written reply by the Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works, Dr Sarah Liao, at the Legislative Council meeting today (May 14) :
Question:
Under the Land (Miscellaneous Provisions)(Amendment) Ordinance 2003, which came into operation on 1 April 2004, holders of excavation permits ("XPs") or emergency XPs, known as permittees, may nominate their contractors as nominated permittees ("NPs"), subject to the Authority's approval and the consent of the contractors to the nomination and their agreements to comply with the conditions in XPs. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of cases, since 1 April 2004, in which permit conditions have been breached, together with a breakdown of such cases by the nature of breaches, whether nominations of NPs were made, whether the offenders were permittees or NPs, and the fines imposed on the offenders;
(b) of the respective numbers of XPs issued and nominations of NPs received by the Authority since 1 April 2004, together with a breakdown by types of applicants (public utilities, private developers etc); and
(c) whether it will carry out a review on the nomination requirements; if it will, of the timing of the review; if it will not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) There have been 17 convictions relating to 8 cases under Section 10 of the Land (Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance (LMPO) since 1 April 2004. The level of fines charged per conviction ranged from $500 to $3,500. Street excavation promoters and contractors shared the number of convictions almost equally. A breakdown of these cases is set out at Annex.
(b) The breakdown of street excavation permits (XPs) issued between the period 1.4.2004 and 31.3.2005 by type and by number of nominated permittees are as follows:
Promoter
Private Sector Government Departments
************** **************************
Number of XPs issued 11,782 29,011
Out of the above, the number 9,147 25,501
of XPs with nominated
permittees
(c) Since January 2004, the Highways Department (HyD) has set up a Standing Committee which meets regularly to monitor and review all issues on the implementation of the amended Land (Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance. The Standing Committee is chaired by an Assistant Director of HyD with members coming from the utility undertakers, government departments and construction associations. Nomination requirements and other reform initiatives are discussed and reviewed by the Standing Committee as and when required.
End/Wednesday, May 4, 2005
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